The conditional in French

The conditional verb form is used in French with similar functions to the formula would ... (or 'd) in English. That is, it is mainly used:

to express future-in-the-past, as in he said he would leave;
to express a potential or hypothetical event, often accompanied by an if ... clause with a past verb: I'd be very upset if he couldn't come;
for pragmatic functions such as to express politeness (I'd like ...) or conjecture (I'd say ...).

There are a few uses of the conditional in French whose parallels don't use would in English. And conversely some uses of would in English aren't usually translated by a conditional in French. We'll look at those later.

How to form the conditional in French

The conditional is easy to form if you know the future tense form of the verb in question:

The conditional is formed by adding the imperfect tense endings to the future stem of the verb.

Here are some examples:

Verb	Future stem	Conditional form	English translation
donner (to) give	donner-	je donnerais tu donnerais il donnerait nous donnerions vous donneriez ils donneraient	I'd give you'd give etc
boire (to) drink	boir-	je boirais tu boirais il boirait nous boirions vous boiriez ils boiraient	I'd drink you'd drink etc
venir (to) come	viendr-	je viendrais tu viendrais il viendrait nous viendrions vous viendriez ils viendraient	I'd come you'd come etc

Recall that for most verbs, including many otherwise irregular verbs, the future stem is the infinitive minus any final -e. But a handful of verbs have irregular future stems.

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